T-Bird wrote:How many times, in how many slightly different ways, will this argument be had before JCList seizes up from too many people simultaneously banging their heads on their keyboards?

The problem is if we don't slap her down people new to these issues might take what she says at face value and be totally misled. I remember many years ago when I was a newby believing some nonsense she posted about vans of vote fraudsters being shuttled around Hudson County. The woman is dangerous.

Yvonne wrote:I find it amazing that people here says $16,000 is an underpayment.

Shame on you. Shame.

Good luck with that, Yvonne quite clearly has no shame, it's possible she never did. She whined endlessly about high taxes while other people were subsidizing her very low taxes in VVP, and sold when she thought the party was over to get out before higher taxes reduced her gains. And now she still is petulant that people have to pay their fair share. She also shamelessly conflates the budget with the reval, deliberately confusing people not versed in the details. She's like Iago, a force of chaos and conflict.

Yvonne wrote:I find it amazing that people here says $16,000 is an underpayment.

That's because if your home is worth $2.2 million, then yes, $16k is a MASSIVE underpayment.

Quote:

There were properties in the Van Vorst community that was paying over $20,000 a year before reval.

So what?

Only 243 properties were billed at $20k or more per year. That is 0.5% of all properties.

Guess what? Only 80 of those properties had their taxes increased. 163 had their taxes reduced. Why should they have to pay higher taxes? So that YOU can get a tax break, for no reason whatsoever, while the value of your property increases?

Quote:

My late friend, Joe Duffy, had a house on Grand St. After his death, the row house, around 20 feet wide was turned into a 3 unit condo....

And yet again! You don't give a crap about the people who were overtaxed.

I find it amazing that people here says $16,000 is an underpayment. There were properties in the Van Vorst community that was paying over $20,000 a year before reval. While I won't give the exact address, I will say that property was on Paulmier Place. What Jersey City Together did a 'cherry picking' to show an underassessment in the downtown area. My late friend, Joe Duffy, had a house on Grand St. After his death, the row house, around 20 feet wide was turned into a 3 unit condo. Before reval, that property was paying $48,000 when you add up the 3 condos in that building. You can multiply that figure thought downtown. In general condo paid more taxes than single family homes, including those in Journal Square area.

Yvonne wrote:Brewster, government pays not one penny in taxes, it comes from the people. If your taxes went from $16,000 as some I know and is now $35,000, it is not net neutral for them.

You have no excuse for such incredibly inaccurate and biased claims.

You've known about this more than long enough to understand that the reval is revenue-neutral.

I just reviewed Appraisal System's assessment list. Out of 43,000 properties, only two homes seem to have gone from $16k to $35k.

Guess what? Their taxes went up, because their assessed values went from $200,000 to $2,200,000.

Guess what else? If the city budget was still around $485m, their taxes would have still increased dramatically.

Guess what else? As already noted, those units underpaid their fair share of taxes for decades. If they owned the unit since the last reval, a ballpark guess is that they didn't have to pay $300,000 in taxes -- none of which they have to pay back.

Guess what else? Someone else in Jersey City paid more taxes so that your buddy could get an unfair tax break.

Guess what else? Half of Jersey City residents were overtaxed. Half. Why don't you ever express the tiniest iota of sympathy for them?

Resisting the reval, or trying to roll it back, or trying to give people a tax break solely because they used to have a deeply unfair tax break, is the epitome of selfishness. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Yvonne wrote:Dolomiti, it is about time you read budgets. It has not been revenue neutral since the spending created by Fulop, read the Healy's 2012 budget and the present budget under Fulop. Furthermore, it is not neutral to those people on the tax/water lien list for 2018.

You're either deliberately trying to confuse or you really still have no idea what happens in a reval. There's no other option since at this point you have no excuse not to know that in this context "revenue neutral" refers to the tax levy being the same before and after the reval, and nothing else.

Dolomiti, it is about time you read budgets. It has not been revenue neutral since the spending created by Fulop, read the Healy's 2012 budget and the present budget under Fulop. Furthermore, it is not neutral to those people on the tax/water lien list for 2018.

Page 7 in the Jersey Journal, an ad for the town of Secaucus, 13 properties are in tax lien, 4 of those properties are in Harmon Cove. It is for year 2017 and prior. Yes, Secaucus is much smaller but JC is putting in lien 2018, the current year because it is desperate. But in the meanwhile the focus is on affordable housing for newer residents, not for the current residents.

No, it means spending has increased over time, Fulop has been bonding and using fines and other taxing revenue to get these no tax rates increase. In reality his budget has ballooned, it is $621 million, Healy last budget was $485 million. There are more bodies on the city payroll and a lot more bonding/spending.

RichMauro wrote:There appears to be a pretty cavalier attitude about the people who've lived in their homes for many decades who are now in a terrible state because of the huge tax burden which some are now facing. Try to understand what it would mean to people who are in their seventies and eighties being told: " aww, just move out or take a reverse mortgage".

If you have lived in the same home for decades, and your property taxes shot up during the reval, this means....

• The value of your property has increased significantly over that time.

• The city failed to adjust your assessment, meaning you essentially underpaid your taxes for decades. That means someone else in JC was taxed more to make up the difference.

• If your taxes went from $6000 to $12000, that probably means you were not obligated to pay $60,000 or more over the years -- and someone else paid it instead. From what I can tell, none of the complainers give a second thought to the people who received tax relief after the reval. (This may be due to the complexities of the system, but I'm sure some of it is due to good ol' self-centeredness too.)

• This did not happen overnight. It was in the works for years. Those residents had plenty of time to prepare. If you were shocked, you weren't paying attention.

We should also note that a lot of the people whose taxes went up are not fragile retirees on a fixed income. It includes the people who bought in the past 5-10 years, i.e. lots of young professionals who could afford to buy in DTJC.

This is why my sympathy for the complainers is limited. It is also why the city should do revals every 3-5 years, instead of every 30 years.

This is what I wrote, neverleft. "The Jersey Journal ran the tax lien for 2018. It was 33 pages. It is the first advertisement." Did you see the words "first advertisement?" So let me repeat, 6,700 people have troubles either paying their water and/or tax bills. Yes, some will go into debt, use credit cards advancement, borrow money from family or even sell something. These people are overlooked by the city. There will be a second advertisement but it does not change the facts of the stress these bills cost JC homeowners.

Yvonne wrote:The Jersey Journal ran the tax lien for 2018. It was 33 pages. It is the first advertisement. However, over 6,700 people more than one in ten cannot afford their taxes or water. When the city talks about affordable housing, they ignore that group and worry about future residents who will come here from the feds list for low income housing.

Talk about fake news. Do you really think the 6,700 properties listed on the tax lien list will be included in the annual tax sale? I have been on that list a few years and I know many others who were also. In my case I seem to always forget to pay my last quarter tax bills and one year I think I somehow owed 50 dollars on a water bill.

As soon as I get tax sale letter from the city after November 11th I rush to the bank and get a certified check and head down to room 101 in City Hall to pay up. Along with many others on the long line going out the door. Unfortunately, if you don’t pay by the time “the list” is published in the JJ you are on it for the next few printings. No matter how much begging you do to the lovely tax women. (lol)

Oh the shame when your neighbors come up to you and ask if you are having hard times. (yes there are actually people who read those 6,700 tiny printed names in the JJ) Although I must admit I do it also when those unclaimed money lists are published…you never know. Also look at the amounts in the list the majority are around 2000 bucks and under probably the last quarter amount and many of the big amounts are LLC’s, realtors, and condo associations. I guess we will be seeing an unvetted “Letters to the Editor” in the JJ in the next couple of days..right?

(from the JC tax website)

TAX SALE

All municipalities in the State of New Jersey are required to hold a tax sale for unpaid municipal charges that remain unpaid at the end of the yearly billing and payment cycle, November 11th. Any municipal charge that remains unpaid and is delinquent as of November 11 in Jersey City will be subject to Tax Sale before the close of the calendar year. The 2017 Tax Sale is scheduled for December 13, 2018. Click HERE for the schedule. Your property is not sold at tax sale; your outstanding municipal debt is paid by a Lienholder in exchange for an amount interest, penalties and statutory fees that they will earn on the amount they paid to the municipality, not to exceed 18%. The Lienholder is able to pay any charges that become delinquent on the account once they hold the lien and add those charges to the lien balance. If the lien is not redeemed within two years from the date of the Tax Sale the Lienholder has the right to begin a foreclosure action. Please contact our office sooner, rather than later if you are having difficulty paying your property taxes, water or sewer bills.

Yvonne wrote:First, not everyone is a senior and those seniors still have to pay in advance before they are reimbursed by the state. Second, there are close to $12 billion that is not paying full taxes. It is a collection of market rate and affordable housing that everyone else is subsidizing through abatements. The ratable base in Hoboken is $11 billion, so in essence JC taxpayers are sheltering more property than the total value of Hoboken. This is partially why 6,700 people are in tax lien.

In the late 1990s, the late Anthony Just was mayor of Secaucus attended the freeholders budget hearing. He talked about the county taxes and how JC was getting away with murder because Secaucus gave no abatements and paid percentage wise more money to the county. After he spoke, I told him, Secaucus should sue JC. He gave me his city hall number and we spoke. I was in contact with the lawyers. Secaucus sued over Tropicana which received a JC tax abatement but Secaucus have similar businesses. Secaucus wanted an extra 10% from tax abatements to go to the county which is 110%. The municipality would keep their 100% and extra money would go to the county. Then there was the fight with Menendez, DeGise and Cunningham who was a state senator. I am not sure of the details. I just know that figure got cut down to 105% So when a tax abatement is granted the city keeps 100% and an extra 5% goes to the county. Everyone gets this one wrong.

Yvonne, they pay full taxes-JC just keeps 95% and doesn’t hand over any of it to the BOE. You seem to ignore that JC homeowners are subsidized by suburban taxpayers funding their schools-and it’s totaled BILLIONS.

First, not everyone is a senior and those seniors still have to pay in advance before they are reimbursed by the state. Second, there are close to $12 billion that is not paying full taxes. It is a collection of market rate and affordable housing that everyone else is subsidizing through abatements. The ratable base in Hoboken is $11 billion, so in essence JC taxpayers are sheltering more property than the total value of Hoboken. This is partially why 6,700 people are in tax lien.

RichMauro wrote:There appears to be a pretty cavalier attitude about the people who've lived in their homes for many decades who are now in a terrible state because of the huge tax burden which some are now facing. Try to understand what it would mean to people who are in their seventies and eighties being told: " aww, just move out or take a reverse mortgage".

It's a very emotional and terrifying prospect to have to change your whole life abruptly. Try to exhibit a little empathy. It may happen to you, your parents or a relative. Some of you don't realize what's coming down the line in Jersey City; no mercy will be shown to anyone. It will get uglier.

.

Tell that to the elderly suburban taxpayers who’ve funded billions of dollars to JC schools keeping JC’s taxes so low for decades.

RichMauro wrote:There appears to be a pretty cavalier attitude about the people who've lived in their homes for many decades who are now in a terrible state because of the huge tax burden which some are now facing.

They have huge tax burdens because their homes are worth tons of money now.

RichMauro wrote:Try to understand what it would mean to people who are in their seventies and eighties being told: " aww, just move out or take a reverse mortgage".

I'm so tired of battling this "reverse mortgage BAD" trope. It's a financial tool, that can be good or be abused like any other tool. You can take out just enough every year to pay your taxes, or take it all out at once to go blow it in Vegas. A senior sitting in a 'paid for' million dollar house can easily pay their taxes, it's that simple.

Explain why not, if you can, without mushy "feelz" reasoning like your desire for JC to be set in amber and not change like cities inevitably do. Thank God it's changing for the better and not worse, as it did for decades. Yvonne is nostalgic for the 20% vacancy rate of the 70s!

Yvonne wrote:The Jersey Journal ran the tax lien for 2018. It was 33 pages. It is the first advertisement. However, over 6,700 people more than one in ten cannot afford their taxes or water. When the city talks about affordable housing, they ignore that group and worry about future residents who will come here from the feds list for low income housing.

In time banks will prevail, eminent domain and tax sales will result in the demolition of entire neighborhoods, and the unique character of what Jersey City once was will be replaced. High rises, cold and without character will be inhabited by a new generation who have no concept of neighborhoods, nor want them. Much of Manhattan looked like JC once, and look at it now. It'll happen in JC too in time.

There appears to be a pretty cavalier attitude about the people who've lived in their homes for many decades who are now in a terrible state because of the huge tax burden which some are now facing. Try to understand what it would mean to people who are in their seventies and eighties being told: " aww, just move out or take a reverse mortgage".

It's a very emotional and terrifying prospect to have to change your whole life abruptly. Try to exhibit a little empathy. It may happen to you, your parents or a relative. Some of you don't realize what's coming down the line in Jersey City; no mercy will be shown to anyone. It will get uglier.